Cameron calls for snap election and claims Brown has no mandate to govern

Thursday 4 January 2007 23:37 BST

David Cameron has launched an attack on Labour's transfer of power to Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown must call an early election because he will have no mandate to govern when Tony Blair leaves Downing Street, David Cameron has said.

The Tory leader demanded a snap poll if the Chancellor wins the keys to No 10, so that voters can have their say over who should be prime minister.

He spoke out as new bout of Labour infighting erupted, with an angry words exchanged between supporters of Mr Brown and John Reid - the two main contenders for the Labour leadership.

In a bid to keep his hopes alive, the Home Secretary gave a speech depicting himself as the true keeper of the Blairite flame, an open challenge to Mr Brown. Supporters of the Chancellor immediately accused Mr Reid of trying to provoke the Brownites.

Mr Cameron dismissed as "complete rubbish" recent reports that his party was terrified of a quick election because it would not be ready.

He said: "I would love to have an early election. I can't wait for the opportunity to get rid of this Government, because it's this Government has been putting up the cost of living, that's wrecking the health service, that's failing to reform education, that's sending social mobility backwards.

"The first step has got to be getting rid of the Government, so the earliest possible opportunity I would be delighted with.

"I don't think anybody other than Tony Blair has a mandate, because he said he would serve a full term in office, so when he goes, his successor, I suspect Gordon Brown, will know in their heart that they don't really have a mandate from the British people."

Mr Cameron's words reveal one plank of the Tory strategy to combat Mr Brown if he wins the leadership and with it the premiership. Senior Tories regard him as a "serial bottler" who would be unlikely to risk the job he has craved all his life by calling an early election.

They intend to taunt him with the accusation that he has never won the backing of the electorate.

In another broadside at the Chancellor, Mr Cameron contrasted the Tory idea of social responsibility with "the state control and the central control we get from Labour.

He added: "You see it particularly from Gordon Brown in terms of the health service and endless centralised targets, you see it with his approach to the economy where all of the growth of the economy is taken in extra taxes every year."

Mr Brown remains hot favourite to succeed Mr Blair but Mr Reid has consistently refused to rule himself out of any contest, with an eye to securing either a senior job under Mr Brown or running against him if the Chancellor's bandwagon starts to falter.

Yesterday in a speech to party activists in London, Mr Reid said Labour must appeal to the ambitious middle classes if it is to hold on to power after Tony Blair leaves office.

He warned: "The Tories will try to argue that Tony Blair equals New Labour. Therefore they will say that when Tony Blair goes, New Labour goes. Wrong - and we have to make sure that people understand that that is wrong. New Labour did not and will not start and end with Tony Blair's leadership. It will continue."

But Labour MP George Mudie, a close ally of Mr Brown condemned the speech. "I think it's just an early attempt to put a marker down to get some of Gordon Brown's supporters to say we need a change of direction, so that he can say 'this is disloyalty to the leader and therefore I shall throw my hat into the ring or I shall find someone to do it'," he said. "I think it's probably the start of them finding a candidate to take on Gordon Brown."

Mr Brown staked his claim to the leadership yesterday by indicating that he will distance British foreign policy from the debacle in Iraq. Instead he will devote himself on the international stage to a £10bn project to create free universal education in poor countries and combating climate change.

In an article for the Guardian, Mr Brown said that if the international community acted in 2007, "education could be the greatest gift" the rich world could give to the poorest countries in order to prevent them becoming a breeding ground for extremists.